Inner Battles Are the Hardest Won
by Diamond Sylvan
Summary: Ginny and Harry. It's after the "final battle" but Harry is still having a hard time dealing with his feelings about it. It includes stuff about where the HP characters go with their lives...not too long, only about 50 pages, but long enough to say what


**Authors Note: So this is told through flashback. It's about Harry dealing with his tangled up feelings about the battle, his memories as well as the memories of others about the battle, and how it impacted the rest of his life afterwards. Anyway Ginny and Harry are married, but they have problems in their marriage because Ginny feels that Harry won't open up to her. He finally tells her all about "that night." Anyway I hope you all enjoy it. It was gonna just be a bunch of chapters, but I decided to just have it be this one shot. It's almost 50 pages though, so it's pretty lengthy...anyway I like it. I cried while writing part of it, so we'll see whatyou all think when you review!**

**I'm alsohaving a really hard time with the title. I don't really like the one I have...I was thinking thatI wanted it to have something to do with battles, or scars, or healing, or forgivness, because those are all themes of this story. But I don't really know. The one I have is OK I guess...well if you have any suggestions let me know. **

Harry's Story at the Battle Part 1  
Reminiscing

Harry stood in the living room of his and Ginny's apartment, engrossed in their second big argument this week.  
"I want a family, Harry." She told him, reinforcing this information for what seemed like the millionth time.  
"I know you do, Ginny. And I want a family too, but I just don't think that now is the best time to bring a child into this world." Harry told her as patiently as he could.  
"Harry, we've been married for two years, Voldemort is gone, forever. He's not coming back. There won't be a better time." Ginny told him, throwing her arms in the air.  
"But there are still death eaters that haven't been accounted for, and things are still dangerous. And I'm still in training, I don't think that my auror training salary would be enough to support a family-" Harry started to explain, but was cut off before he could complete the thought.  
"Harry, I was raised in a family of nine. Things were always a tight stretch, and we always managed to pull through. I was raised off of hand me downs for Christ's sake! I think we would manage. You have a large salary, bigger than my dad's ever was, and we have more money in the bank than we would ever know what to do with. Not to mention my salary." Ginny told him, irritated with his continuous excuses.  
"I know, Gin, but still. I think we should wait just a little longer..." Harry said, trailing off. He was fishing for another excuse.  
"Harry I feel like I've been waiting my entire life for you to be ready." Ginny told him. Harry almost staggered under the weight of that blow. What hurt the most was that she had a point. "I idolized you for years, waiting for you to notice." Ginny said,  
ticking off one finger. "When you finally started paying attention, I had to wait until I graduated from Hogwarts until we could really be together" she said, ticking off a second finger. "After Hogwarts, you  
proposed and I was the happiest person on earth," Harry smiled, reminiscent of that day, her graduation day. He remembered it as clearly as if it had been the day before. He could visualize the tangy scent of the air, the aroma of summertime at Hogwarts.

Flashback  
He had been a graduate of Hogwarts for a year, and had been training hard at the ministry to become an auror. He was, fortunately, in Fudge's good graces once again, and had been accepted into the auror training program. He was living in a small apartment in London, only a few blocks away from the muggle entrance to the ministry. But work was not all he was doing. During his final year at Hogwarts he and Ginny had grown much closer. Their relationship had evolved from that of Big-Brother's-Best-Friend and -Best-Friend's-Little-Sister, to best friends in their own rite, and later to more than friends.  
Ginny was great. She was beautiful, smart, fun, brave, everything Harry would ever want in a friend or a girlfriend. And she liked him back. He had been shocked by his own good fortune. With Ron and Hermione spending all of their free time together, Harry had been feeling vulnerable and alone. Ginny had been there for him the entire time, she was always by his side through everything that he went through.  
She helped him work through his feelings about Sirius's death, which was still predominant among his dark thoughts. He found his mind drifting more and more towards the veil that he had seen in the  
department of mysteries, and even considered going through it himself to see what was there and solve the mystery once and for all. But Ginny had guided him away from those thoughts, and skillfully steered him back to the light. He honestly to this day could not fathom what he would have done without her.  
But then his seventh year had come to an end and they no longer saw each other daily. They had agreed to take a break and see how it went. It had gone badly for both. They had instead resorted to Hogsmede weekends and letters sent between the two constantly.  
By the time Ginny was graduating Harry knew that he could not live without her, but Voldemort was still around, and growing in strength. Harry did not want to marry Ginny only to have one or the other of them die the next day.  
He remembered watching her graduate, shake hands with Dumbledore, receive a diploma, smile broadly. The moment was gone, although it would live eternally in pictures. Ginny was easily the prettiest girl there. She had come a long way from the awkward little girl who knocked over sugar bowls whenever Harry entered a room. She was beautiful, especially in her dress robes, which had been newly purchased for this occasion.  
Harry had eyes only for her, much to the amusement of Ron, who did not fail to comment on it. It had been a while, however, even after the graduation ceremony ended, before Harry could get her alone.  
It had been that night, they had been alone outside where they had gone to 'get some fresh air' after dinner. Fred and George had exchanged many a snigger when they announced their desire to go outside for a walk. Harry was nervous. He had no experience proposing, but Ginny was the only girl he ever wanted to be with. She was the only girl who he felt truly comfortable with.  
"So, congratulations, Hogwarts graduate." Harry said at last, breaking the prolonged silence as they walked, hand in hand, around the edge of the Weasley garden. Harry's mind took a brief meander down memory lane to the occasion that he and the twins had de-gnomed the garden in the summer before his second year.  
"Thanks." Ginny said, laughing lightly and applying a slight pressure to his hand. "I never thought that this day would come." She said somewhat pensively, her voice sounding slightly distant.  
"Yeah." Harry agreed, thinking back to his own graduation from the hallowed halls of Hogwarts.  
"It's kind of bittersweet." She said, inhaling deeply. "It's great to know that I'm done with homework, but it's so odd to think that in three months time I won't be going back there again. There  
are so many faces that I'm used to seeing every day that I'll probably never see again." Ginny said thoughtfully, a slight twinge of regret in her voice.  
"You know what I remember?" Harry asked, stopping and turning her towards him.  
"What?" Ginny asked, laughing at his abruptness.  
"I remember in my first year. I met your family in Kings Cross. I didn't know how to get through the barrier, do you remember?" Harry asked her.  
"How could I forget?" Ginny asked, grinning in the faint moonlight.  
"You were complaining to your mom, begging her to let you go to Hogwarts, do you remember that?" Harry asked.  
"Yes, I hated being the only kid not allowed to go to school. To me Hogwarts was a completely novel idea. There was nothing I wanted more in the world than to go to Hogwarts and be a big kid. I wanted to do magic and learn and be with my big brothers. I wanted to be just like them." Ginny said, gazing into the distance, her eyes faintly glazed over.  
"Yes." Harry agreed.  
"That was seven years ago now. That's so odd to think of. It seems like it was just last week." Ginny said with a sigh. "So much has changed since then."  
"Yes, so much has changed." Harry said. "You're not a little girl anymore. You're a woman, a grown woman who knows her mind. A brave, clever, beautiful, supportive, kind and caring woman. The most perfect woman I've ever met. And I'm not a confused little boy anymore, Ginny." Harry said, kneeling down on the slightly damp ground and revealing a soft velvet box from his pocket. Ginny gasped slightly. "Ginny Weasley, love and light of my life, will you consent  
to be my wife?" Harry asked, opening the box to show her a lovely, delicate silver band. In the center of the band was a square cut diamond that twinkled in the soft lighting of the garden. There were two smaller diamonds on the ring, one on each side of the large  
diamond.  
Ginny got down on her knees as well, tears welling in her eyes.  
"Yes, Harry. Yes. I will be your wife. I will love you forever and ever." Ginny said. As he removed the ring from the box and slipped it onto her long slender finger it seemed to glow for a moment. She seemed to be struggling to hold back tears. "It's beautiful," she whispered, admiring the ring that fit so perfectly  
on her finger.  
"You're beautiful." Harry whispered back, standing and taking her hands in his own, raising her to his level. "Ginny, you made me the happiest man in the world today. Regardless of Voldemort, death eaters, everything else that's going on, I have you, forever and always. And you'll have me even longer than that," he told her. "But I have to ask you to wait a little while. I don't feel right marrying you until this war is over and Voldemort is gone. It shouldn't be long, I feel that we are on the edge now. But it wouldn't be fair for me to marry you if I were to die tomorrow. Then I would leave you a widow." Harry explained, his own hear filled with regret.  
"I understand." Ginny told him, although she also felt remorse at this. "Shall we go tell the news to the others?" She asked him, a smile breaking on her lovely, delicate face. Harry smiled happily, engulfing her hand in his own larger one.

End Flashback  
"but then we had to wait until Voldemort was gone because it was too much of a risk." Harry was jerked out of his reverie and found himself still staring at her hand, just as he had been doing in his remembrance. Three fingers. She was angry and frustrated. He hated it when her chocolate brown eyes welled with tears like that, when the usual calm and tenderness was replaced with anger. "We finally got married, after four years of waiting around as your  
fiancée, and now you're still making me wait for you to be ready. You still can't handle a commitment, can you? We've been married for two years, and you still refuse to let me in." She told him, ticking off the fourth finger.  
"Ginny, that's not true." Harry said in a placating voice, although it was barely above a whisper.  
Harry was no longer the boy he had been at Hogwarts, he had aged a good deal since then. He had seen things that still haunted his dreams, things that had changed him permanently. He no longer had the look of innocents and naiveté, but was instead a man. A man that had suffered much and lived through hard times. A man who had been forced to grow up before his time. At 25 he had an expression in his eyes that suggested an age of far greater experience and maturity than his years allowed. Although on the outside he was still a young man, in spirit he was far older. His work was tolling as well, and now Ginny wanted a family. To be sure, he wanted children as well, but he still felt that it was not safe to bring a child into a world  
still in the throws of healing from the war.  
"It is true, Harry. I have been waiting around my entire life for you. And you do refuse to let me in. You know all of my thoughts, everything about me. You know the way that I like to brush my teeth, you know which side of the bed I prefer, how I take my coffee, you know every little quirk and every little idiosyncrasy, and I feel like I don't know anything about you. I let you in completely, you know more about me than I know about myself. But when it comes to you I'm never sure. You're so mysterious, you never let me inside your mind. You have all these dark corners of your mind that you don't let anyone in to." Ginny told him in frustration.  
She was tired of waiting around for Harry to decide to stop being afraid of letting her in. She understood, she really did. She got that he was afraid of growing too close to people, of becoming too  
attached. That had not worked out well for him in the past. So she had been able to write it off as first when she felt that he was being sullen and reserved. But after almost six years of living together, it was time for him to realize that she wasn't going anywhere.  
"Ginny, you have no idea." Harry told her morosely.  
"Only because you won't let me get an idea." She told him, exasperated. "Believe me, I don't not know for lack of trying or wanting."  
"Ginny, you don't want to know what goes on in the darkest, deepest corners of my mind. I don't even want to know. There's a reason that I keep it bottled in, it's because it's dangerous, it's because it's scary, and it's because I don't want to think about it. It's the shadowiest workings of my mind because I keep it that way. You weren't there that night, Ginny. You don't know what it's like." Harry told her, choking on a lump that was rising in his throat. It had been a long time ago. Perhaps she was right, maybe it was time to move on.  
"Harry, if this marriage is ever going to work then you'll have to tell me sometime." Ginny said, a calmness entering her voice that was stiff and unnatural. He knew that his words had hurt her, but what she said next hurt him more than anything else she could have said. "Maybe we just aren't ready for marriage. I'm only 24, and you're only 25. We were so young when you proposed, and we've obviously grown in different directions since then." For a moment Harry couldn't speak. He stood, rooted to the spot, muted by her words. He could not believe that she had said that. It was as if he had been slapped hard across the face. Her words were stinging him more than any slap could ever have done.  
"You don't mean that Ginny." He said at last, after a long moment during which she averted her eyes and refused to look back at him.  
"Maybe I do mean it, Harry." She replied defiantly. Her ears were turning pink around the edges, just as Ron's used to do. She jutted her chin out and still kept her eyes fixed on a corner of the wall away from his face in an effort to avoid eye contact.  
"No you don't." Harry told her calmly, willing his words to be true with all his might.  
"Yes, Harry, I do." Ginny told him.  
"You don't love me anymore?" He asked, horrified. What had he done? He had successfully ruined the single best thing that had ever happened to him.  
"Of course I love you." Ginny said, breaking down at last. She collapsed onto the couch, sobbing in to her arms. "I'll always love you, Harry, however hard I wish not to." He sat down on the couch next to her and looked at her for a long moment. He would have to let her in eventually. She had to know the truth about his tangled emotions, if he could even discern the truth for himself from this tangled web of confused feelings. He took her slight figure up in his arms and began telling her the complete version of what had happened that night, leaving nothing out.  
"Ginny, it's time I told you the whole story about what happened that night. I told you a garbled version of the truth, but what I'm saying now is the whole truth, with nothing omitted. I didn't want to tell you then because it was too painful, too confusing. I didn't want to relive it more than I had to in my own head, and I didn't want to impose than sort of pain on you." Harry started, taking a deep, cleansing breath. It was time. He had been putting it off for two years, and now it was time. She would know everything that had happened that night. He had to tell her. And afterwards she could decide what she thought about him, about everything.

Flashback

It was a dark and stormy night, the evening of March 13. The death eaters had been pressing forward for the past month, taking no prisoners now. Voldemort was on the point of obtaining eternal life, which had been his goal for his entire reign of terror. The death eaters had stopped taking people into their folds, instead they killed, without mercy. They were "cleansing" the world of all the impurities, of all the mud blood. The muggle police were a wreak. They had no idea who was committing the murders, how to trace them, or even how people were dying. Bodies would turn up appearing stunned, as if all of their organs had simultaneously combusted.  
Of course, the wizarding world knew that this was the results that would appear when a lab ran results on the body of one who had been killed using the Avada Kedavra curse, an unforgivable curse.  
Dumbledore, the leader of the Order of the Phoenix, had decreed that it was time to make a last stand, whether they died or lived was irrelevant now, for only more of their numbers would die if they held out any longer.  
It was four years after Harry and Ginny had announced their engagement. She was 22 and he was 23. They were all young, in body and in spirit, and were ready for a fight. All of the members of the DA were now prominent members of the order. There were more Hogwarts graduates as well, but Harry and his circle of friends were the leaders.  
Hermione so far had proved invaluable. She had organized a network of spies among the house elves through the elves that she met and befriended through Dobby. Much to Harry and Ron's surprise, SPEW had gotten a great deal of attention. Hermione, rather than perusing a high powered career as many had expected she would, had instead taken on the less glamorous job of setting up a fledgling organization. SPEW was a fledgling no longer, in fact it had many  
members and was one of the leading non profits of the day. Hermione was not rich, but she had her husband, Ron, were happy. They lived comfortably off of the money he earned in his salary and the money she made in public appearances.  
Hermione and Ron had, like Harry, decided to wait until the defeat of Voldemort to get married. But after two years of waiting they had decided that there was no time like the present, and had tied the knot. Hermione and Ron, although they fought like cats and dogs often enough, were very happy together. They were a match made in heaven, as was apparent to all who knew them well.  
Neville, to everyone's surprise, had done great things as well. He had entered a healing training program at St. Mugoes. He had told Harry in confidence once that it had been his dream since he  
was a young boy to cure his parents. And he was making great strides towards accomplishing that goal too. When he acquired his own wand as a replacement for his fathers, which had been broken that fateful  
night at the ministry at the end of Harry's fifth year, the night that still haunted his thoughts occasionally when he remembered Sirius's fall through the veil, he had made great strides in his magical  
career. It turned out the Mr. Olivander had been quite correct when he said that the wand choosing the wizard was very important after all. There had been a piece in the Daily Prophet about Neville, written by Luna Lovegood, describing him as a rising star in the field of medicine. Thanks to his research in the fields of herbology and potions, healers were growing closer every day to finding cures for what had thought to be permanent memory destruction. Everyone had high hopes that Neville would live to see his parents fully recovered.  
Luna, after graduating, had gotten a job with her father at the Quibbler. After two years working with him, she realized that the articles she was writing were ridiculous, and that none of what she was writing was true. She had been clinging to everything her  
father said because she wanted to believe it, but she had found things that were real. She was no longer a social outcast who needed to cling to her invented reality as an escape, she had friends. Great friends, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley, and Neville Longbottom. She had gotten a job at the Daily Prophet after that realization, and was moving up in the world. She and Neville were seeing each other as more than friends now.  
But tonight none of that mattered. Harry was standing in the rain, Ginny on his right and Ron on his left, waiting for the arrival of the death eaters. He knew they would come. Voldemort was confident, as well he should be, and was determined to put an end to  
the wizarding world's last hope of salvation, Harry Potter.  
Sure enough, only a moment later, they started to appear. Harry could feel Ginny shifting, and knew that she was scared. They had a plan, and Harry had to stick with it. he knew that. He knew that he would do what Dumbledore had told him, hard as it would be to put his trust in faith and leave his friends when they would undoubtedly need him most. But he removed all thoughts of that from his brain, they were competent fighters, they would defend themselves.  
Harry and the others began to shoot spells at the approaching death eaters as the approached. There was a row of members of the order stretching far away, and he knew that at this moment they would be circling the arriving death eaters and trapping them in the center. The was the plan at least. They had chosen the location of the final showdown on a comparably level plane, the same site that the quiddich world cup had taken place all those years ago. Thinking of that night pained Harry, though. It reminded him of Mr. Weasley, who had been murdered last year during his duties for the order. Harry planned to avenge that death. Avery would pay for that. Unless Ron got there first. Harry had heard him talking about what he would like to do to the man who killed his father if they ever came face to face.  
And then the battle started and Harry lost all track of what was going on. He did not know where his friends were, except Ginny who was fighting by his side. He had told her earlier not to leave him until he told her to, he wasn't taking any unnecessary risks. If she were going to die, he would want to be there. And if he were going to die, he would want her there. But he wasn't going to think of either of them dying, he wouldn't let himself.  
Harry could not think, all he could do was fire spells at the masked death eaters who were approaching from all sides. And then Harry understood. They had anticipated the plot and arrived in scattered groups. They were coming from behind the orders line. He had to find Hermione to get a message to Dumbledore. He would have gone to Dumbledore himself, but Harry knew that he was on the other side of the line. Harry called for Hermione, his voice rising above the volume of the wind, which was picking up now, chilling him to the bones in an ugly prophecy. He scoured the field for any tell tale sign of Hermione and finally saw a figure that resembled her fighting against a tree. He and Ginny rushed to her, panting for breath, and stood at her side.  
"Need message- Dumbledore- Death Eaters, outside line!" Harry panted. he was yelling even though they were close, but his voice was barely audible over the shouting and the rain.   
"I know!" Hermione yelled back. "This lot surrounded me." Hermione explained, gesturing the menacing circle of death eaters that were approaching. Harry counted six, they were outnumbered two to one. He shot a stunner at the closest one and struck his march. Five to three, not as bad. "I don't know where Ron is. Find Ron. Whatever happens to me, find my Ronnie." Hermione implored, entreating him with her eyes. Harry looked back at her, shooting a spell at a death eater he had been marking out of the corner of his eyes.  
"Nothing is going to happen to you, so you can find him yourself when this is over." Harry said firmly between curses, his voice not betraying the tumult of emotions that her words released inside of him. Ginny was impeding the progress of one death eater by  
employing her famous bat bogie hex. Hermione had used the impedimenta on a fourth.  
Harry pushed up the sleeves of his robes, ignoring the Goosebumps rising on his skin. It was time to put some of the techniques he had been learning in auror training to use. And fast. At this rate the death eaters would win. Their numbers had swelled since his fifth year, and the order was far outnumbered. Harry just hoped he didn't encounter too many dementors.  
Harry, upon entering the auror training program, had made it his mission to master the spell that Dolohav had used so effectively in the department of mysteries. He had done it, and used it now. His wand flashed purple twice, cutting down the two death eaters. Harry knew that if they weren't dead yet, they would be soon.  
"Gin, stay here. Or go with Hermione. You two stay together. And find Ron. Stay in large groups. I don't want you going off on your own, either of you. Understand?" Harry demanded. Ginny would have argued, but she knew how deadly serious this situation was. There was no room for argument in Harry's tone.  
"What about you?" She asked him quickly. "Where are you going?"  
"I have to find Dumbledore." Harry said evasively.  
"And then?" Ginny pressed, suspecting the answer.  
"Voldemort." Harry said shortly, avoiding her eyes. She shuddered and came a step closer, gripping his shoulders.  
"Harry-" She started.  
"Ginny, don't argue. I have to do it and you know it. I'm the only one who can. You remember the prophecy." It was not a question.  
"Of course." She said in a defeated tone.  
"Ginny, I love you. Whatever happens, remember that. I will love you forever and longer. But-" Harry gulped. "If I die, I want you to be happy. Don't wait for me forever. When I'm gone I'll wait for you, behind the veil, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be happy. Or fall in love again. Or do whatever you want. Don't let my memory stop you from-"  
"Harry, don't say it. I'll never love anyone but you. And don't you forget that." Ginny told him, pressing a finger against his lips.  
"I have to go." Harry said, kissing her quickly and passionately before running across the field to find Dumbledore. He couldn't stop the thought crossing his mind that it might be the last time he ever kissed her.

Ron's Story at the Battle Part 1  
Fred and George

Ron had gotten separated from Hermione in the fray at the start of the battle. But Ron was not too worried, he would be able to hold his own, and so would Hermione. He would find her. 'Please let me find her' he prayed. He was a little more concerned than he was willing to let on.  
Ron was on a mission. He had been overcome with passion and hatred. He wanted to find Avery, the man who had killed his father. He knew that Harry, Ginny, Fred, George, Charlie, Bill, and Percy would all be searching for the man as well, but Ron wanted to find  
him first.  
His prayer was not long in being answered. Ron saw the face that had haunted his nightmares for the past year snarling and leering at him not far ahead. It was difficult to be sure in this lighting, and Ron may have been imagining it, but he felt in his bones that it was Avery. His mask had been discarded, presumably during a fight that he had obviously come out of victorious.  
Ron couldn't stop the morbid query of who he had killed from entering his mind. Would someone else have lost a father tonight because of this man? He wondered. If I kill him, will I be taking away someone else's father? The questions wouldn't stop coming. That was why he wouldn't make a good auror, he always felt guilty when he even thought about killing people. That was partly Hermione's fault.  
She was always telling him to question things, not to accept things without an argument.  
Hermione. No, he told himself, don't think of her now. You'll only get distracted, which will lead to death, and then thinking of her would have been in vain because you'll never see her again. He told himself cynically.  
"Another Weasley!" jeered Avery as Ron glared at him, is wand brandished.  
"Yes, another Weasley. You killed my dad, now I'm going to make you regret it." Ron said.  
"Oh, you're still on about your father? I would have thought you'd have moved on to your brother by now." Avery taunted.  
"My brother?" Ron asked in a momentary lapse of concentration. Avery took advantage of this opening and shot a spell at him. Ron put up a shield spell and deflected it. 'Stupid, Ron. He was only trying to get your guard down, they told you about that in  
training. Harry's told you about that countless times in mock duels. Why don't you listen?' Hermione's voice started rattling in his mind about paying attention. Her voice had of late made a habit of entering his thoughts of it's own accord.  
"Yes, your brother boy. I killed him." Avery snarled. Ron told himself over and over again to ignore it. But he couldn't stop the curiosity. He had to know.  
"Which one?" Ron asked. Avery let out a cackle of laughter.  
"How should I know? There are too many of you. There were two of this one. Identical they were. I killed one of them, the other shot me with something and seemed really angry and upset. I felt my personal safety would be at risk if I messed with him." Avery  
let out another cackle, tilting his head back and laughing. He had a disgusting grin plastered on his face and seemed really proud of himself. Ron did not let his mind wander to Fred or George, would not  
ponder over which, if either, of them this man had killed.  
Ron took advantage of the man's lack of concentration and shot him with the Avada Kedavra curse. It was the first time he had used it, and he didn't know if it would work, but he was so filled with hatred and rage that it did. The fact that he had successfully used  
and unforgivable curse filled him with both awe and fear. He hadn't known that he had it in him. It was a scary thing. He did not want the ability to kill. Once you had the ability and will to kill, you were only a few steps away from being Voldemort or a death eater.  
Ron ran off in the direction that Avery had come from, desperate to find Fred and George, to see if there was any truth in what Avery had said. He did not have far to go. He saw a figure hunched on the ground, rocking back and forth, sobs audible over the  
howling of the wind. The beating of the rain and the rocking of the trees seemed to Ron to be echoing the distraught man's tears and shaking. The world was crying for his brother, the dead one and the living.  
He sprinted the last few steps and slid in the mud to the side of the body. Fred looked up, his face splotched in red and angry tears on his face. He was waving his wand, ready to kill whoever was interrupting this moment of grief. Ron could see in his eyes that  
his brother would have killed him too. There was no registering of recognition on his face until Ron spoke.  
"Fred, it's me." Ron said in a placatory voice.  
"Ron." Fred choked.  
"Yes Fred, I'm here." Ron soothed.  
"They've killed him, Ron. That son of a bitch that killed dad, he's killed George." Fred said, sobs raking his body again. Each sob seemed to tear him more deeply.  
"I know, Fred." Ron said, tears streaming down his own face. He felt a large lump rising in his throat. Things wouldn't be the same without George. Fred wouldn't be the same without George. All the joy would be gone from their joke shop. The jokes would be half as funny with one twin gone. Ron but his arm around his older brother's shoulder and cried with him, remembering all the times he had shared with his two brothers at Hogwarts, before Hogwarts, and after Hogwarts. They had been mean to him before, teased him, but in the end they always had his back. The two of them. Fred and George. Together. Everything had changed.  
"I have to find that bastard and kill him." Fred said, anger rising in his voice.  
"I already did, Fred. He's dead." Ron told him in an effort to calm him down.  
"Dead?" Fred asked, sounding if anything angrier.  
"Yes, I killed him." Ron said slowly, not sure if he had said something wrong.  
"I wanted to kill him. I deserved a shot at him." Fred said. Ron understood that he was taking his sadness and anger out on Ron,  
but Fred could be unpredictable when he was upset.  
"I know you did, but he might have gotten away and killed someone else if I had waited." Ron explained.  
"Yes." Fred nodded his agreement, his face growing still wetter. Ron and Fred sat on the rain drenched ground for several long moments, rocking back and forth and crying over their loss. "He was my best friend, Ron. He knew me. Hell, he was me. What will I do now that he's gone? It's never been just Fred. Ever since I was born it's always been Fred and George, a big lump. Now he's gone. I might as well be gone." Fred said, his tears renewed in full.  
"Don't say that, Fred. What would happen to the joke shop if you were gone? The people need you to spread joy." Ron said consolingly, although he was not sure if he believed it himself.  
"The joke shop isn't worth it without George. It was always something we did together. We did everything together. Now nothing will be worth it." Fred said in a tight voice. It cracked in the middle of his sentence and he broke down again. "He's gone, Ron. He's gone." Ron did not know what he could say that would comfort his brother. What could he say? There was no response to that. All he could do was sit there and hold his brother until his shaking subsided.  
"Fred, we're going to apperate out of here with the body, okay?" Ron said slowly and loudly over the volume of the wind. Fred did not reply. Ron took his silence as assent and apperated away from the raging battle with the body and Fred. They arrived at 12 Grimwauld Place intact. Ron knew that he had to return to the battle, although he hated to leave his brother in this state.  
He left Fred on the floor, rocking back and forth cradling George's broken body, chanting over and over 'he's gone' as if trying to make it sink in. Neville's Story at the Battle Part 1 Revenge   
Neville had been next to Luna, who had been next to Hermione, who had been next to Ron, who had been next to Harry, when the battle began. In the chaos that proceeded the arrival of the death eaters and the destruction from behind of the order's line, Neville had been separated from his friends. All except Luna. He was with her now, fighting with her back to back, pitted against four death eaters.  
It had been a while since Neville had done this. It was four years now since he had graduated from Hogwarts, and since then he had been training in healing, which did not entail much grounding in combat magic. Of course, he had the lessons that he had learned from Harry at Hogwarts all those years ago engrained in his memory. The DA meetings had been the crowning jewel of his time at Hogwarts. In his other lessons, with the exception of herbology, he had been a nobody. No one cared about what he did except to make fun of it.  
But when he was at a DA meeting, everything was different. Harry had actually cared about his progress, he had taught him real defense. And now he was using it. To be sure, the first year of meetings were pretty bad. Neville made great strides under Harry's tutelage, of course, but he had not been a shining star. After he had gotten his own wand though, everything had turned around. Snape did not criticize him after that. The memory of Snape's facial expression on his first day in the sixth year when he successfully completed a potion perfectly by himself was priceless. It was still one of Neville's favorite memories.  
The wand gave him more confidence more than anything. It was a symbol that he was no longer living in his father's shadow. It proved that he was a wizard in his own right, and that he could do magic. He had advanced so much in that year, and the next one. In  
fact, his marks had been high enough for him to be accepted to the healers training program.  
And now he was standing, gripping that same wand for his life, back to back with Luna, firing spells at complete random and attempting to maim or impede anyone he could who was on the other side. He tried to grasp on to the feeling of pride and self confidence that had been bubbling inside of him a moment ago, but it did not work. He searched in his head for other proud memories, and found one.  
And now look at him, he was leading the field in the memory herbs and potions. He was on his way to curing memory trauma disorders. That was a huge accomplishment. He had been praised as a shining star by the Daily Prophet. To be entirely fair, that was due mostly to the fact that his girlfriend had written the article, but the entire wizarding world was looking to him, Neville Longbottom, for great things. Neville, who had been at the foot of his year for so  
many years. People were expecting great things from him!  
The pride came welling to the surface now, and Neville had a large spurt of magical energy. He slashed at one of the death eaters in a wild attempt to injure them. He struck out and hit the target.  
The death eater fell with a gasp and a flash of gold light. Had he killed them? Neville cringed at the thought. What would people think if they found out that he was a healer who, in his spare time, killed  
people? What would his Gran say? What would his parents say when he finally cured them and brought their memories back? When he thought of it they would probably all be proud. His parents had both been  
aurors after all.  
Luna was panting from the strain of the fighting. He couldn't blame her. She was in the same boat as him. Her aid to the order up until now had consisted of writing sympathetic articles and using her positions to get more friends to the order inside the newspaper.

Just as Neville was thinking of how happy and confident he was in Luna's presence, there was a laugh and a flash of light. Luna had been hit. He felt more than saw her body crumple behind him. Now  
he was surrounded, his back and front exposed to the enemy.  
Just as Neville was contemplating what he could do next, and considering trying to apperate away, he heard a familiar laugh that was enough to make his legs freeze. he had heard that laugh so many times in his dreams, so he did not need to turn to see who the body and face of the person the laugh belonged to. He could see her face as clearly as if it had been plastered over his face day and night. The heavy lids, dark, strong features, the hollowed cheeks. Everything spoke of cruelty. How many times had he relived his encounter with her? The number was infinite.  
She was the source of his motivation to continue with his research. Every time he reached another blockade in his studies, encountered a new problem with whatever drug he had invented, he thought of her laugh, her face, the words she had spoken to him.  
Thinking of it now made him dizzy, just as it always did. "I have had the pleasure of meeting your parents boy. Let's see how long you can last before you crack like they did." Bellatrix Lestrange. In Neville's mind, there was no crueler person on earth.  
What kind of sick mind took pleasure out of hurting innocent people? Yet she reveled in it. All this flashed through Neville's mind in one moment of hot fear and terror.  
Neville turned slowly. Time itself seemed to have stopped. This was the moment he had been imagining for years. he had rehearsed what he would say, imagined her possible reaction, what she could  
possibly say to justify her actions, everything. Yet now that it had arrived he could not open his mouth to say a word. He felt paralyzed. His throat was dry. He had now turned fully, his body was facing her.  
There were more death eaters now. He would never escape. Yet a part of him did not want to. He wanted to confront this woman, to face her. He did not want to run and prove his own cowardice. He wanted to face her like a man, face her as his father would have.  
He straightened his back as Bellatrix stalked towards him. She tore her mask off her face, revealing the face he knew so well. She smiled that evil, sinister grin that he had seen countless times in his memories of that one encounter he had had with her.  
"So, Longbottom. You are Longbottom, aren't you?" She asked in her thick French accent.  
"Yes." Neville said stiffly, meeting her eyes. She was just as scary as he remembered, although she did look much older now.  
"You look just like your father did!" Bellatrix exclaimed, apparently delighted. "Who here remembers god old Frank?" Bellatrix demanded of the assembled death eaters. There was a murmur of appreciation in the crowd. One man let out a bark of laughter,  
stepping foreword. It was Rudolphus Lestrange, Bellatrix's husband. He had been there that night that had culminated in his parent's permanent insanity.  
"There is a certain family resemblance." Rudolphus commented, examining Neville. His eyes swept up and down. "This will be fun."  
"That's what I was thinking. Just as a little test, shall we try out a small dose first? We can do it exactly the way we did it to his parents. Do you remember, Rudolphus? How much fun that was! We can do it just the same and see who lasts longer." Bellatrix said, smiling maniacally.  
"I'm betting on the parents." Rudolphus commented. "They lasted surprisingly long, considering." He said, sneering and chuckling to himself. Bellatrix joined in with her harsh, cruel laugh.  
"Yes, but by the end they were begging for death." Bellatrix reminded him.  
Throughout this exchange, Neville was quiet. Inside him, however, an explosion was happening. He was enraged that these people would talk about his parents in this fashion. They had tortured them to the point of insanity and were laughing about it. They felt no  
guilt, no remorse. He had lived his entire life without parents because of these people, and they did not even care.  
Neville was so angry that he would have done anything at that moment. He took a step back and stirred Luna's crumpled body. That only made his fury grow, for these people had taken away the only girl who had ever actually taken his seriously. Well, the assistant nurses took him seriously, but Luna had always been kind to him, and treated him as an equal. And now she was hurt or possibly dead because of these cruel, murderous people.  
"What did you do to them?" Neville demanded, his medical curiosity taking hold of him. He tried to make his voice as firm and assertive as possible, but there was a quiver that he could not keep out of it now that he had been recalled to Luna's body on the  
ground.  
"Oh yes, I had almost forgotten. Ladies and gentlemen, our young rising star of medical science!" Bellatrix cried out sarcastically, pointing towards Neville. There were laughs of derision among the death eaters. Some sniggered, others just openly  
laughed. "It is too bad that no one will know how to heal him once he's in the same position as the others." Bellatrix said in a voice filled with mock sorrow.  
"What did you do to them?" Neville repeated, his tone containing more confidence this time.  
"I suppose it would help your research to know, wouldn't it? Well, we preformed the cruciatis cure on them, among other things. We showed them some unpleasant sights, and told them the sorts of things  
that we had done or were planning on doing to their loved ones. It was very sad, really. They were fine until we told them what we had done to you. Really you could say that it's all your fault that they  
cracked at all." Bellatrix said, smiling viciously, her lip curling. Neville did his best not to fall into the trap she had set him, the trap of self doubt and blame, but it was so hard not to.  
Neville did not realize what he was doing, but he felt his wand rising without his knowledge or control.  
"Crucio!" He yelled, pointing his wand at Bellatrix. She began to laugh at him, but after a moment the spell began to take hold. Neville continued pointing his wand at her, venting 24 years of hatred, loneliness, bitterness, fear, and anger into the spell.  
She was screaming, begging, crying, whimpering, and cowering on the ground. Neville felt no pity for her at all. She had, moments before, spoken with no concern about what she had done to his parents, and about what she was planning to do to him. This woman who was screaming and balling like a little baby was accountable for the loss of countless lives.  
He continued filtering all of the emotions he had been feeling for years into his cruciatis curse. The other death eaters looked on in horror as their leader lay crumpled and writhing on the ground. "It's too bad that no one will be able to help to cure you after I break you." Neville said coldly, his voice almost as empty as her own had been moments before. Her tone had a more mocking quality to it, while his was only harsh and uncaring.  
He felt as if he were watching the scene from outside his own body. This was not the timid, insecure Neville who he used to be. This Neville was cruel and cold. He did not particularly enjoy seeing himself sink to their level of violence, but he had no choice.  
He had been waiting for this moment his entire life. Everything had been leading up to the moment when he could avenge his parents. Now this was it, and he could not show weakness.  
He stopped the spell at last, having exhausted his own rage. Bellatrix did not stir from the ground.  
"Bella." Rudolphus said softly, almost tenderly, to his wife, crouching down to revive her. She let out a laugh, but it was not the haunting laugh that had echoed in Neville's nightmares, it was a foolish laugh. Neville had pushed Bellatrix to the brink of insanity and over it, and he hadn't even needed to use any words or threats.  
Instead of being filled with a sense of pride, Neville was filled with a sense of dread and self hatred. He did not want to wait and see what had happened. He scooped Luna's limp body into his arms  
and ran as fast as he could. To his surprise, no spells were shot after him. He made it to the safety of a covering of trees before stopping. He had to see if Luna was alive before continuing. If she was, then jolting her body by running all over the place would not be wise.

Harry's Story at the Battle Part 2  
Voldemort

Harry left Ginny and Hermione and ran quickly through the rain in what he assumed was the general direction of where Dumbledore was supposed to be. It was dark, the wind was loud, the rain was falling in sheets, he was cold and drenched to the bone, but none of that mattered right now. All that mattered was finding Dumbledore, and killing Voldemort.  
Harry squinted through his glances, wishing that they would stop fogging over. It was too bad he had needed glasses, it would be much easier to see without them. He was just puzzling over what he could do when he crashed into a tree.  
"Ow" he cried out, rubbing his nose and feeling wetness. He paused, wondering whether it was blood or just the rain, but when he tasted the salt in his mouth a moment later he knew it was blood. "Bloody fuck" he swore under his breath, wiping away at the blood with the side of his hand. At least his nose was not broken, he thought irritably.  
He continued through the rain, more cautiously now. He could see flashes of light in the distance, and he heard shouting all around. The cries echoed around in his mind, he heard shouting, laughter, and he thought he even made out sobbing. He turned in a circle, trying to decide which way to go. He was completely  
disoriented now, and did not know how to find Dumbledore.  
It became obvious only a moment later when he heard a fierce battle cry and saw a tall figure illuminated in gold. It had to be Dumbledore. In the bright flash of light he could also discern the shape of a bird. It had to be Fawkes.  
Harry ran towards where Dumbledore was, hoping that this would also reveal Voldemorts whereabouts. If Voldemort had even come. Harry was frozen with doubt for a moment. What if Voldemort had decided to only send his death eaters to eliminate the order? What if  
he was not here and all these lives were lost in vain? What if Harry never got a chance to put an end to Voldemort once and for all?  
Harry continued on his way, approaching Dumbledore and the order members surrounding him.  
"Dumbledore!" Harry called out, walking towards him against the wind.  
"Harry, we're losing too many. Find Riddle now, or we pull back." Dumbledore said, defeat in his voice. Harry knew he was right. There was nothing they could do if they lost everyone in the order. But this was not the Dumbledore who had been Harry's mentor and headmaster at Hogwarts. This Dumbledore was old and wizened, defeated by years of Voldemort's hatred. He was not the fearless man who could accomplish anything that he had once been. After Hogwarts had been closed the previous year, he had gone downhill. Harry nodded  
firmly.  
"Take everyone away. Get all of them out of here. Leave me alone with Riddle." Harry decided at last, after thinking hard about Ginny, and the many friends he was sure to lose if they lingered any longer.  
"Harry, we can't leave you alone." Dumbledore told him, panic in his voice.  
"Just do it." Harry ordered. He never would have ordered Dumbledore, once thought of as the greatest wizard of all time, to do anything if the situation hadn't been so dire. But right now he was thinking only of saving as many as he could.  
"What will I tell them?" Dumbledore asked, after a startled pause.  
"Tell them it's over and we've won. I won't be leaving until that's true, so it won't be a big lie. Just go, leave Voldemort to me." Harry said. He was not at all confident that he could, in fact, deal with Voldemort on his own. All he knew was that he had to.  
Dumbledore turned away and left to spread Harry's order. Harry inhaled deeply. The area around him had been emptied of death eaters, presumably due to Dumbledore's spell, and the order members had already scattered to find more death eaters.  
"RIDDLE!" Harry called out, his voice resonating over the volume of the storm. I Voldemort were here anywhere, he would hear Harry's call. "RIDDLE! SHOW YOURSELF! YOU CALL YOURSELF THE MOST POWERFUL WIZARD IN THE WORLD? PROVE IT!" Harry challenged at the top  
of his lungs. Voldemort would not stand for that kind of insult if Harry knew anything about him.  
"So, we meet again Potter." Said an icy voice that was enough to chill Harry to the bones. He turned and saw the figure of Tom Riddle approaching him. They were close in height now. Riddle seemed to have grown stronger and healthier in the past years. The only  
thing that remained the same in his appearance as the night that he had been resurrected in Harry's fourth year were his eyes. Those narrow red slits were still there, putting Harry in mind of a snake.  
In fact, they looked exactly like the eyes of the snake that was now circling Harry's ankles. He knew that her name was Nagimi from a previous encounter. Voldemort was hissing to her now in parsletongue, the language of the snakes, a language which few wizards  
understood. Harry understood it though, a gift that had brought him much difficulty in his second year. His classmates had all believed that he was a murderer based on his ability to speak with snakes.  
"Leave us, Nagimi. Gather my death eaters to come and witness the fall of the boy who lived. That was your name, was it not, Potter? Well, it won't be any more. You will be the boy who lived at one time. Or the boy who died. The boy who fell." Voldemort  
hissed at him. Harry did not understand at first, the hissing he was making now did not mean anything in parsletongue. Then he realized that Voldemort was laughing. "So, you called me, boy?" Voldemort  
demanded, switching to English.  
"Yes, I called you to tell you that it is high time you met your doom." Harry told him with more confidence than he felt. Voldemort began hissing with laughter again.  
"Meet my doom, will I? By your hand I suppose? That is quite the challenge. I accept." He said, appearing to find this all very amusing. "You do realize that I could crush you with one word, though."  
Voldemort added, seemingly offhandedly. Harry did not reply, he waited for Voldemort to begin dueling. "Well, what are you waiting for? Bow, Potter. Or do I need to assist you?" Voldemort asked, referencing the duel they had had before. Harry bowed shortly, he  
would not fall for that again. Voldemort inclined his own head as well.  
Riddle shot a dart of red at Harry, who dodged to the side nimbly. Voldemort smiled, he was only warming up.  
"Ever find out what that prophecy was, Tom?" Harry asked conversationally as he shot a jet of green sparks from his own wand.  
"No, I never did. But it won't be very important for much longer, as I'm about to kill you." Voldemort said, advancing on Harry with his wand raised. Harry thought that for a brief moment he saw a flash of  
hesitance and curiosity in Voldemort's face.  
"How do you know?" Harry asked him, smiling himself on the outside, but shaking with fear on the inside. Being in such close proximity with Voldemort made his head ache.  
"I am the better wizard, Potter." Voldemort explained, as if to a young child.  
"But you never heard the prophecy. How do you know it didn't say what would happen here tonight?" Harry pressed, watching with glee as Voldemort's expression changed slightly. Voldemort obviously did not want to attempt to kill Harry only to have it backfire again.  
Harry did not know what else to do but to press his advantage. 'Act confident, pretend you know what you're doing' he told himself over and over again.  
"You know, Harry, we could avoid all of this quiet easily." Voldemort said slowly. Harry was not sure if he had heard correctly. Voldemort had called him Harry.  
"No, we can't." Harry told him.  
"But we could." Voldemort insisted. "You could join me." Harry's stomach turned over at the thought. "Join us, and you could have power beyond your imaginings. With your help we could rule the world," Voldemort coaxed. Harry blinked. Voldemort was trying to get him to join his cause. He would never do that. Harry was a good guy, he was a defender of those who could not defend themselves. And yet  
Voldemort's words seemed oddly appealing. "We're just the same, you and me." Voldemort told him. "I put some of myself in to you when I gave you that scar. You could be powerful, Harry. You can get out of the shadow of that broken down old man and rule the world at my side. I would be the father you never had. Just think of it Harry." And Harry, against his own will, did think of it. He hated himself for doing it, but he couldn't help but be drawn in to Voldemort's depiction of what reality could be. He saw himself, ruling the world. Maybe Voldemort was right, maybe there was no fighting the inevitable. Harry was just like Voldemort. He wanted power, it was only natural.  
Who would blame him for joining Voldemort's side? "And think of Ginny. If you were on my side, you would have no fear of attack. You could finally marry that girl of yours." Voldemort coaxed.  
Although the mention of Ginny was supposed to make Harry want to join Voldemort, it instead started a fire inside his mind. He thought of what Ginny would say if he joined the ranks of the death eaters. Her face flashed clearly in his vision, and that more than  
anything made his decision for him.  
"Never. I will never join you or your death eaters. No one will. There won't be any death eaters left to join after tonight." Harry told him.  
"Legilimens!" Voldemort cried out. Harry recognized the familiar spell from his lessons with Dumbledore and Snape. Voldemort would try to find out what Harry knew through reading his mind, but Harry was ready. he had had much practice with these types of spells in his occlumency lessons. He countered the spell and put up a wall just in time. He receded into his own thoughts, protecting them with all of his will power.

No sooner had he entered his mind than he felt a force slamming into his mind. It was Voldemort's will, combating his own. This was the only way either one of them would win. It would be a battle between their minds to see who would emerge victorious. Harry felt himself trembling with the exertion of fighting Voldemort. He could also feel himself losing ground. Voldemort would soon be in the  
outer layer of his thoughts.  
Harry pressed back hard against Voldemort's mind. He managed to regain some ground. He felt Voldemort grip him mentally, squeezing. Harry pushed back, freeing himself from Voldemort's hold. Just then a thought occurred to him. A thought that, had Voldemort gotten a hold of it, would have been Harry's undoing. He needed to lead Voldemort to a certain area of his mind, and keep him away from the rest of it.  
He thought hard of that force that was within him. The force that would be the only thing to harm Voldemort. The force that was contained in such large quantity in the department of mysteries. Love. And courage. He recalled those emotions to the surface of his brain, thinking of them hard. He managed to harness the feelings. He felt an invisible net going over the feelings, a net he had cast.  
Harry, for the first time when facing Voldemort, knew exactly what he had to do. With an incredible surge of energy, Harry pushed against Voldemort's mind. It gave. Only slightly, but Voldemort had moved. Harry pushed again, harder this time. He was making progress. He used his "net" of emotions to push harder against Voldemort. This time there was a large give. Now the positions were reversed. Harry was on the verge of entering Voldemort's mind.  
Harry gave one final shove and he was in. Scenes went flying past him as if he were in a movie. Tom Riddle as a young boy at an orphanage. Tom Riddle as a young man arriving at the Riddle House and killing his father and grandparents, the first murder the boy ever committed, and far from the last. Harry saw countless scenes of brutality. He was so engrossed in what he was seeing as he flew deeper into Voldemort's mind that he only recalled his mission when he felt the shove of Voldemort's blockade. He would not have much time, as he did not have the strength to fight much longer. He released his net. The emotions it had contained, the emotions he had brought from his own mind, were now being released into Voldemort's mind. Consuming him. Voldemort had never known love, or courage, and could not understand them. Harry quickly exited the mind. He snapped back to reality and reentered his body.  
He looked down at the crumpled figure of Voldemort in front of him. It was shriveling in front of his very eyes, dissolving, disintegrating, disappearing. Voldemort was crying out in agony. Harry looked around, he was surrounded by death eaters now, death  
eaters who had arrived at the call of Nagimi. But now, rather than advancing menacingly, they were backing away. Voldemort was gone, dead, forever.  
The death eaters who had joined Voldemort's ranks because they were under curses seemed to be coming to their senses. The others seemed to be looking shifty and nervous, backing away from Harry faster, for fear of now being caught by the ministry. Harry saw  
Luscious Malfoy and his son Draco among the death eaters, backing away quickly, making a run for it.  
"Stupefy!" Harry shouted at Draco's retreating back. Draco was not escaping without punishment. Neither was his father. They would pay for the years of torture they had put people through, and the years that Draco had taunted and bullied other students at Hogwarts. He pointed his wand at Luscious next. He looked threateningly at the remaining death eaters. None of them moved to attack. Nor did they move to retreat. They were all rooted to their spots out of fear.  
Harry did not know what to do next. If he apperated to Dumbledore, the death eaters would escape. If he stayed here and waited for someone to come, he might be here forever. He opted for a third option. He used a clever spell that he had learned a while ago  
and had never had a chance to employ. He conjured ropes from the air and wrapped them tightly around the death eaters, who he herded into a large group. He then ensured that no one would break the ropes by  
charming them to be indestructible.  
Reasonably sure that they would still be there when he returned, he apperated to Grimwauld place. When he arrived he could hear the portrait of Mrs. Black yelling, and heard Tonks apologizing to Mrs. Weasley. It was just as things had been in the past, before  
Sirius was gone, before Mr. Weasley was gone. Harry entered the living room, almost scared of what he would find. He did not want more people close to him to be dead. He saw Fred on the floor, holding George's body and crying. No one could console him, and a few people glanced at him concernedly every once in a while. Molly was alive and as well as could be expected upon the death of a son. Tonks was there, as was Remus. There was a subdued atmosphere in the room  
when Harry entered. No one seemed to have noticed him yet. He saw Percy, Bill, and Charlie all talking in a corner about the battle, what they should have done differently, and George. Everyone's eyes were red. Harry did not know how long he had been alone with  
Voldemort, but it had obviously been long enough for everyone to arrive home. He wondered if Ron, Hermione, and Ginny had made it. His mind flitted to Luna and Neville, and then lastly to Dumbledore, who he needed to find.  
Harry turned and left quietly. He could not shake the image of George's broken body from his mind, but knew that right now was not a good time to think of that. He went to the kitchen, which was deserted, and then up to the room he and Ron had shared when they  
stayed here. There he heard Ron, Hermione, and Ginny, all talking in hushed voices. He heard George's name mentioned, and his own. He opened the door slowly, edging his face around the side of the door. The three looked up. He saw that Ginny and Hermione had been crying, and still were, and Ron also had the appearance of one who had shed many tears. He was wiping his eyes right now. It looked as if they had just finished with their sobs for the moment.  
Harry entered the room and shut the door, then turned to his friends. Ginny leapt up from the bed and ran to him. He opened his arms for her and she hugged him tightly, sobbing into his shoulder.  
"Harry, you're alive." She gasped. "We-we-we all thought-" She stuttered, her hands roaming over his back and face and arms, as if to assure herself that he was all there.  
"We thought you were a goner, mate. Dumbledore told us we had won, and that it was time to go home. We assumed you'd be there, but when you weren't, we just all thought that..." Ron trailed off. Hermione came over and hugged him next, checking as Ginny had that  
he was, in fact, still alive and in one piece.  
"Harry, George...he's dead." Ginny told him slowly and quietly, her voice choked.  
"I know Ginny." Harry told her simply, holding her in his arms tightly as she cried against him. He had thought that they had finished crying, but apparently he had been wrong. His shirt was growing damp from her tears, and she showed no sign of stopping.  
"Harry, what happened?" Ginny asked at last, pulling back just enough to see his face.  
"Nothing Gin, he's gone, it's all over. That's all that matters." Harry told her, walking over to the bed and sitting down, his arm still around her. He pulled her closer, as close as he could. He never wanted to let her go again. He had been so scared. He had thought he would lose her.  
"Harry, I was so frightened." Ginny said, leaning against him and wrapping her arms around him more tightly, squeezing him hard.  
"We all were." Ron said quietly. Harry noticed that they also could not stop looking at each other, hugging, and checking to see if the other really was alive.  
"Ginny, I love you so much." Harry whispered in her ear, his face buried in her hair.  
"I love you too Harry. I don't know what I would have done if you had died. I don't know what the rest of the world would have done either. We all would have fallen apart without you." Ginny told him.

"Excuse me, I hardly think I said that." Ginny interrupted. Harry paused in his story to look at her.  
"I thought we agreed on no interruptions?" He reminded her, resuming his story after she subsided, settling back into her seat. "Where was I?" Harry asked, thinking back to the two years previously. "Oh, yes. You were just telling me how much you loved  
me." Harry reminded her, resuming his story where he had left off.

"Let's get you cleaned up." Ginny suggested at last. Harry looked at her, his eyes filled with love, adoration, and admiration. She was so strong even in the face of all she had encountered that night. Even though her brother was lying on the floor dead on the  
floor beneath them, she was still strong and practical. "You're a complete mess, Harry. You're covered in blood. You should have a bath." She suggested. He smiled feebly at her brave efforts to put on a strong front. She was firmly wiping away tears and swallowing hard. She sniffed loudly, but determinedly.  
"Let's go home, Ginny." Harry said, taking her hand in his and walking out onto the landing.  
"Wait, Harry, you can't go just yet." Hermione told him.  
"Hermione, it's late, I'm tired, why can't I sleep?"  
Harry asked. It was actually early, he noticed, looking out the window. The sky was tinted red and pink with the dawn's light.  
"The others will want to know you're safe, and Dumbledore will want to speak to you." Hermione told him.  
"I'll see the others, but Dumbledore can wait until morning. Where is he, anyway? I didn't see him downstairs." Harry observed.  
"Didn't he come back with you?" Hermione asked, fear in her voice and anxiety on her face. "No, he was getting all of you away from the battle." Harry said, uncertain now.  
"Yes, he did that." Hermione told him with a dismissive wave of her hand. "He went back. Didn't he go back? He said he was going back. You didn't see him?" Hermione asked, worried. "Ron, where is  
Dumbledore?" Hermione asked, turning to Ron. He was standing behind her, looking concerned and listening attentively.  
"I couldn't say." Ron told her.  
"Why can't you say? Do you know?" Hermione demanded.  
"Of course I don't know. Why do you always expect me to know everything?" Ron asked her.  
"I'm sorry, I'm just tired and worried." Hermione said, apologizing and reaching for his hand.  
"Well, maybe he's downstairs now." Harry suggested, hoping against hope that he would be there. When they arrived, however, he was not there.  
"Harry!" Mrs. Weasley shrieked. "You're alive!" She ran to him and embraced him, crying on him and hugging him tightly. "We were so worried."  
"I'm sorry. I'm fine. I'm alive. You haven't seen Dumbledore, have you?" Harry asked before the others could surround him and begin questioning him.  
"No, I thought he was with you, Harry dear." Mrs. Weasley said anxiously.  
"He didn't turn up?" Arthur asked, joining his wife in front of Harry.  
"No. I'm going to go look for him." Harry told the room. The others had begun to surround him by now, Bill, Charlie, Percy, Tonks, and Lupin. Fred seemed oblivious to everyone but George.  
"I'll come." Ginny told him.  
"No, Ginny. I have to go alone. You should stay here and rest." Harry suggested. "Get some sleep. I'll come get you soon and we can go home. I don't want you to have to be in that big empty apartment alone." Harry told her. Ginny, to his surprise, did not argue. She was not overly eager to return to the scene of the battle.  
Harry disapperated before any more could be said. The last thing he saw was Mrs. Weasley ushering people towards the kitchen to fix breakfast. He saw Hermione crouching beside Fred, probably attempting to coax him away from George's body.  
When Harry arrived at the battle site he went immediately to the location of the death eaters who he had roped up. He found that the Ministry Law Enforcement Squad and a few aurors were already there, rounding up the death eaters.  
"Potter! What happened here?" demanded Andy Grell, an auror who had graduated training only a few months ago.  
"A fight. They lost." Harry said, not smiling, although Grell began to laugh at this comment.  
"And you won?" He asked, straightening.  
"Obviously. They're the ones in ropes." Harry observed.  
"That was a nice spell, the indestructible one. It took us a while to break it," Grell told him.  
"Yeah. It's a simple one, but effective," Harry told him. It felt so odd, making small talk. He had things to do, bodies to find. He shivered slightly at the prospect.  
"Show it to me some time, will you?" asked Grell.  
"Sure." Harry replied.  
"So, where's er, well, You Know Who?" Grell asked uncertainly.  
"Gone." Harry told him.  
"Gone?" Grell asked, taking a step closer.  
"Forever. He'll not be coming back. Ever." Harry told him forcefully. He was almost trying to reinforce the concept within his own mind.  
"So, the boy who lived survived after all?" Grell asked, smiling for some reason. Didn't he understand that this was serious? That people had died over this? Apparently not. "Good going. Why aren't you a fully fledged auror yet? You're better than most of  
us." Grell observed.  
"I'm not ready yet." Harry told him, not revealing that he had been offered a chance at becoming a full auror on numerous occasions. He had passed the training, but he didn't feel mentally prepared yet. He still had too much to learn. Maybe in a few years he would be ready, that was what he kept telling himself.

"Well, I hope you'll join us someday." Grell said, walking back towards the death eaters who were being carted away, probably to Azkaban, although the dementors were no longer there.  
Harry slipped away quickly, before anyone else engaged him in conversation. They somehow all seemed to know that it had been him. How? Had a death eater escaped? Or was he just paranoid? Maybe Grell had assumed it had been him since he had been on the scene.  
Harry walked around the circumference of the battle field. It looked less sinister in the daylight, although there were the tell-tale signs of a battle that still lingered. Spilt trees, small fired  
burning, smoke, and a few robes lying on the ground. Harry did not care to guess where their occupants were.  
Harry, at long last, came across a pile of robes that looked all too familiar. He rummaged in the pile of robes, dreading what he would fear. There they were, a pair of half moon spectacles. There was no wand, however, so perhaps Dumbledore had escaped his doom.  
Harry had this thought in his mind for only a moment longer. He then looked up and saw a sight that was enough to make his blood curdle. Dumbledore's naked body was hanging from a tree, his wand snapped in half and dangling close to his ear from a separate rope. Harry could not look any longer. Dumbledore's face was blue tinged and swollen. He was obviously dead. This could only be the work of death eaters, no one else would be so cruel to an old man. Harry climbed up the tree slowly, making a huge effort not to look at Dumbledore's swaying body. He could not bear it. He cut the rope down, hating to let the body fall like that, but there was no way around it. Dumbledore needed a proper funeral. Harry preformed a hovering charm on the body and propelled it in front of him, the way he had once seen Sirius do with Snape's unconscious body.  
Harry transported Dumbledore's body back to the ministry officials, who, although looking very disgusted by the appearance of the dead corpse, promised to deliver it to the proper people. They  
guaranteed a respectable funeral for the brilliant wizard.  
Harry had one final thing to do. He wanted to scour the area around the forest, in case he had missed Neville or Luna's bodies, which had not yet turned up. He still held to a thread of hope that they had left the battle and made it safely back to one of their houses, but at this point he did not have much hope left in him. He also wanted to make sure that there were no more death eaters lying in hiding on the surrounding trees.  
He made his way to a clump of rocks, which seemed as good a place as any to start. He searched the trees for an hour, searching for his friends. There was no sign of human life, so he gave up, deciding to return to Ginny and the Weasleys.  
The sun was much higher in the sky now, and it was a clear and bright day, contrasting with the previous night. He apperated to Grimwauld Place and entered the front hall. He went to the kitchen first, but found it empty. They had apparently finished eating.  
He then went upstairs and tapped on the door to the room that Ginny used to sleep in. He pushed the door open and saw her resting, her chest rising and falling peacefully.  
He entered the room, and although he hated to wake her he shook her gently.  
"Ginny, wake up. Let's go home." Harry suggested. Ginny sat up, rubbing her eyes.  
"Harry, you really are alive. I was afraid it was a dream for a moment there." Ginny told him. She rose from the bed and grasped his had, wobbling slightly. They apperated right away to their house, not remembering to say goodbye to anyone.  
"Ginny, let's get married." Harry said as soon as they reappeared in the living room.  
"I thought that had been the plan for the last two years." Ginny told him, the tiniest of smiles tugging at her mouth.  
"No, I mean soon. Let's get married soon." Harry told her.  
"I've been waiting for you to say that for a long time." Ginny said contentedly. "But first you need a shower." She told him.  
They both got in the shower and Ginny helped him to scrub the blood off of his back and shoulders. She wiped the dirt off of his face and chest and kissed him tenderly. Harry was ready to burst for joy that she was alive. He couldn't stop looking at her. And  
soon they would be married.  
"Ginny, I love you." Harry told her again. It was like, now that they had survived that ordeal, that he couldn't stop saying those words. He couldn't tell her enough, after having been faced with the prospect of never having a chance to tell her again.  
"I love you, Harry." Ginny replied, smiling happily. They went to bed after their shower and slept the entire day away in each other's arms.  
Harry woke that evening and found Ginny still sleeping. He slipped quietly from the room, not wanting to wake her. He had not yet told her about the battle, or Dumbledore, or Luna and Neville's missing bodies. He sat down at the kitchen table, his head in his hands. This had been his first chance to really be alone and quiet with his thoughts since encountering Riddle. He thought over what he  
had said about Harry's potential to be powerful. He had said Harry could rule the world with him. He would have been the father Harry never had. It was a tempting prospect. Harry found himself regretting that things had not played out differently. It took a  
great deal of energy for Harry to remind himself that, if it were not for Voldemort, he would not need a substitute father.  
Harry sank into a phase of depression. He could not stop reliving the moments he had had inside Voldemort's mind. The moments he had experience facing his own desires. They were complicated things, desires. He wanted power, he wanted success, he wanted Ginny. He wanted a family, but he also wanted safety. More than anything he was afraid.  
Not knowing what else to do, and not wanting to wake Ginny, Harry rose. He could not sit here any longer without going mad from thinking. There were too many things to think about. Instead he headed over to the hospital, just to check if Neville had turned up. To his surprise he had, he had checked in, according the nurse, earlier that morning. But not to work, she further told him. He had been bringing in a Miss Luna Lovegood, who was in critical condition. She was recovering now. Only one word echoed in Harry mind, recovering. He asked her what room they were in and walked to it with all haste.  
"Neville!" Harry called out loudly when he was halfway down the corridor. He received an angry glare from a passing nurse, obviously a silent reprimand for him to be quiet.  
"Harry? Have we won?" Neville asked.  
"Yes, we have. Voldemort is gone, for good this time." Harry told him. Neville looked glad to hear this. "How is Luna?" Harry asked.  
"Better. She'll be fine now." Neville told him. Harry was glad to hear this news.

The next few weeks were a flood of activities. The newspapers printed issue after issue about the death eaters being captured, the prisons being restored, and obituary after obituary about the many who had died. George's was among them. Dumbledore's took up an entire page in the Daily Prophet. It included a picture and a description of the many works of his life. It made Harry sad to read it.  
There were also funerals to attend, wedding preparations to be made, and reporters to be dodged. Reeta Skeeter, who was back to reporting anything she could, had written a piece about the battle including quotes that Harry never remembered saying, as she was wont to do on most occasions.  
Harry, although happy that Voldemort was gone, was still depressed and busy. He was busy rounding up the escaped death eaters, and cleaning up the mess left behind by Voldemort. The world had a lot of healing to do before things would ever be the same.

End Flashback  
"And so that's what really happened. I still think about what he said to me, Ginny. I can't help it. I love you so much, and I don't regret the choice I made, but sometimes I can't help thinking what would have been different." Harry confessed at last, looking at the woman in his arms. She looked like she had been crying at times during his story. She was lying against him with her head against his chest. She seemed to have forgiven him.  
"Oh Harry. Why didn't you tell me all of this when it happened? Why didn't you tell me that you had been offered a position as a real auror? Why didn't you take it. I can't believe you. All this time you've been feeding me excuses about how you don't have a big enough salary. Yeah right. Accept the job Harry. Become a full time auror. I know that being in the training program is safer, but you know what, Harry? Take a risk. You do the same work that all the aurors do anyway. You do more work than most. Harry, as your wife, I order you to accept the job." Ginny told him.  
"Aren't we rather missing the key issue here?" Harry asked mildly. He couldn't help smiling at her. "Okay, I'll tell Moody that I want the job on Monday, I promise." Harry told her.  
"Oh Harry. Why didn't you tell me?" Ginny asked with a sigh.  
"It wouldn't have made a difference. It only would have upset you," Harry told her.  
"Harry, I could have helped you through it. We could have worked through it together. I know you want influence and power, but that and killing innocent people and destroying lives are totally different things. Look what he did to Fred! He's still broken  
from his loss, I doubt he'll ever be the same again. His hearts not in the joke shop any more. He was telling me the he was thinking of selling the business just last week." Ginny told him. "But, I bet you, if he had told someone about his emotions instead of trying to work through it alone, he would be different." Ginny told him.  
"I doubt it." Harry told her.  
"Well, you do have someone. Now I at least know why  
you've been so distant." Ginny said, seemingly understanding.  
"So you forgive me?" Harry asked. She nodded. "And  
marrying me wasn't a mistake?" Harry asked.  
"Of course not." Ginny gasped, horrified.  
"Your words, not mine." Harry told her. She pulled  
him into an embrace.  
"I should be the one apologizing, Harry. Not you." Ginny told him. "I've been so impatient with you. Of course you needed time to heal. We don't need to have kids right now. We can wait as long as you like."  
"You don't want kids?" Harry asked. "I can't believe you." Harry told her, shaking his head in mock seriousness.  
"No, I didn't mean I don't want kids ever-" Ginny started to say hurriedly, before she realized that he was teasing her.  
"I actually have decided that I want to have a big family." Harry told her. She smiled. "And if we're going to have a lot of kids we should probably start soon." Harry suggested.  
"That would probably be the wisest plan." Ginny confirmed, nodding sagely.  
"Which means that we should probably get a move on. Right now in fact." Harry said, standing and yanking her to her feet. She giggled, standing in front of him. He leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth. She squealed a little and started to laugh, breaking  
the kiss off. "What?" Harry asked.  
"I can't even remember the last time you kissed me like that." Ginny said, giggling and blushing.  
"Just think, after all these years I can still make you blush." Harry announced.  
"I bet I can make you blush more" Ginny challenged, leaning in and kissing him hard. She wrapped her arms around his neck while his hands were busy roaming up her shirt. They backed up to their bedroom, eager to start their family.

**Authors Note: So whatdo you think? I hope you liked it...were there any areas thatreally didn't make sense/flow/whatever commentary you would like to give me. Anyway, just tell me what you think. Oh and how do you like those apirings? Wasn't what happened with Fred and George so sad? I hated writing that...they're like my favorite characters after Sirius and Remus...well actually they're all just tied, i love all of them. Fawkes is pretty cool, not gonna lie...haha so review it and tell me what you think!**

**I also hope that the bit with Dumbledore wasn't too gruesome or brutal...that just struck me as the type of thing that death eaters would do. I dunno. Also, was the fight with Voldemort rly unrealistic or was thatsemi-OK? Flame if you want, just tell me what you think.  
**


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